Transformation is a Beautiful Thing

Thanks to the generosity of a visionary philanthropist, one year ago today the Treehouse Foundation joined forces with Friends of Children and the Rudd Center for Adoption Research at UMass Amherst to host the first Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America Conference in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Here’s why we are coming together to create a culture of possibility for our nation’s children and youth whose lives have been impacted by foster care:

Today in America more than 500,000 girls and boys are being raised by the state. They will spend their childhoods moving from foster home to foster home. Some will end up in residential settings. Some will be placed in Group Homes. Children who are removed from their families and placed in foster care are often traumatized, stigmatized and 75% are more likely to wind up homeless, unemployed, incarcerated and living in poverty as adults.

How do we, as a country, help children who have been placed in our public foster care system flourish ??!

The Treehouse Foundation is collaborating with stakeholders from all walks of life to break this cycle of despair and failure. We are working diligently with individuals, organizations, colleges, universities, businesses and philanthropists to create real solutions.

The Treehouse Foundation believes that children are children first – their placement in foster care does not define them. Providing every child with a strong family and a caring community that is dedicated to his or her health and well-being is the answer. Since 2002, Treehouse has collaborated with regional and national partners to:

• Build a multigenerational neighborhood where families adopting children from foster care live with engaged neighbors of all ages who invest in one another’s lives daily.

• Develop a compelling new Menu of Engagement Options so that Americans have a wide array of choices for how to become a resource to a child or youth in their backyard.

• Launch a Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America Initiative to ensure that every child is rooted in family and community.

Treehouse is dedicated to developing sustainable program models that can be replicated across the country with one goal in mind: to prevent 25,000 young Americans from “aging out” of foster care alone annually.

Please join us and share our passion for improving the lives of children and youth placed in foster care. There are many ways to get involved through financial support, volunteering and lending your expertise. We need your help to spread the word. To learn more about the Treehouse Foundation, to stay connected or to contribute, please visit us at: